


A Little Faith

by snowshus



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 05:52:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13496170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowshus/pseuds/snowshus
Summary: The end of earth 3490





	A Little Faith

The other earth hangs in the sky, huge and red. Heat, Natasha thinks, caused by the friction of two universes rubbing against each other. It’s beautiful in its own way; most terrible things are. If she stares hard enough, Natasha thinks she can actually see it getting closer. Each second, it takes up a little more of the sky. Seven minutes and counting until impact. The trigger for the bomb sits on the railing of the balcony. It looks so innocuous like that, like it’s a harmless garage door opener or something. Natasha picks it up again. Time is running out. Just push it, she tells herself. Don’t think about it, just do it. Her finger hovers over the button. She puts it back down.

Six minutes.

“I am so angry at you right now,” Steve’s voice comes from the doorway.

She turns towards his voice. Her heart stutters and throat tightens, the burn of tears already building as she takes him in—her Steve.

“You came back.”

“How could you not—” He starts, then presses his lips together. “No—that’s not why I’m here.” Steve is quiet, holding himself stiff in the doorway. “What’s the plan?”

Natasha turns back to the sky with a shrug. “There is none.”

“You expect me to believe you don’t have a plan.” Steve sounds almost fond underneath the bitterness.

Lying to Steve has never been easy, and that moment of hesitation before she says “I don’t” gives her away.

Steve just looks at her and then looks pointedly at the trigger box on the balcony rail.

Natasha follows his gaze. “You know the trolley problem?”

“The what?” Steve says, blinking at the sudden change of subject.

“It’s this dumb pseudo-philosophical problem. There’s a guy on the track-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the trolley problem.” Steve interrupts.

“There’s your lever.” Natasha gestures to the trigger. “I did the math. I mean, I didn’t do the math, there’s no math to do, no possible...what is one world worth compared to two whole universes?”

“If you have it all figured out, why aren’t you pulling it?” Steve asks, his voice gentle for the first time in weeks.

“I can’t. I thought—we’re all going to die either way and I could save so many other people if I just…” Natasha picks up the little grey box again. “If I just—Peter and MJ had a baby last week,” she says, putting the box back down. “She’s going to die whether I blow us up or not, and there are billions of babies being born out there and in that other world that will be saved, and I still can’t bring myself to be the one to kill her.”

Steve steps forward, finally coming all the way out on the balcony. He pulls her into his arms and kisses her. Holds her closer than he ever has before, and kisses her like it’s the last time he’ll ever have the chance, which it is—one way or the other.

“I love you,” he says, pulling back just far enough to talk. “I am still really really angry with you, but I love you. I will always love you, no matter how angry you make me, and there is nowhere else I would rather be at the end of everything than right here with you. I need you to know that before we die.”

“I love you,” Natasha says back and the words feel inadequate, trite and overused, but they are the only ones she has so she says them again and again, hoping that, with repetition, Steve might feel at least a small amount of how much she means it.

They stay like that, foreheads pressed together as the end pushes closer. The timer in Natasha’s head keeps counting: seventy-two seconds to impact.

Steve pulls away and picks up the trigger. His finger traces the little red button. “It would save both universes?” he asks.

“That’s the theory."

“Theory? Or are you sure?” Steve gives her a hard look.

“It’s not that simple,” Natasha replies. “I can’t exactly test it.”

“Okay,” Steve acknowledges. “But you believe if one of the earths is destroyed, both universes will survive.”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Steve says again, reaching out to her. Their wedding bands clink against each other as they lace their fingers together. “I believe in you.”

He pushes the button.


End file.
